Warriors
by Foxtrot Agent 21
Summary: In a sci-fi AU, Naruto is an Agent in an organization that proudly doesn't exist. Life for him is pretty standard for a man who doesn't exist until the accidental assassination of Hiashi Hyuuga. Then life takes a turn for the worst. Rated T for language and violence. Rating subject to change.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One: Revelations**

_November 11, 2135_

_Somewhere in the Wildelight district_

"Command, I have visual on the target." A voice asked, seemingly talking to nothing.

"Roger that, Sentry. Fire at will." A voice replies, seemingly coming from nowhere.

A hesitation. "What about the others, Command?"

"…What about them?" The other asks, tone almost bored, but cold.

"Understood." Four shots ring out.

.- ...

_November 18, 2135_

_Undisclosed location, aboard the _Overlord

Naruto ran down the hallways of the _Overlord_, gritting his teeth as him communication unit yelled his ear off. Or rather, the person on the other end of the line did. "Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry I'm late. One the engineers messed with my alarm!" he yelled back as he came to a sudden stop in front of a metal door. Taking a moment to compose himself before entering into what would likely be his funeral, Naruto pressed the button right next to the door and walked into the room. A squad of angry glares met him as he walked in and tried to appear as though they didn't bother him.

"Well then," a naturally stern-looking woman began, pressing a few buttons on a control pad as she turned to look at a screen behind her, "now that Agent Sigma has decided to show up, we can begin your briefing."

"Sorry Director, some engineer-"

"I do _not _accept excuses, Sigma," the aged blonde woman told him forcefully without looking at him, "Perhaps you've forgotten that?"

"No Director," he answered shamefully, eyes on the ground.

"I hope not. Now then," Director Tsunade Senju began again, "yesterday we lost contact with Agent Epsilon, who was on an infiltration mission into an Insurgent outpost of great import. One moment we had all her information clear as day, and then it was gone. Our only conclusion is that she is dead. If so, it means they've found her out and are about to abandon the outpost. Your mission is to stop them from doing so."

On the screen behind the Director of Project Hellkite was a layout of an asteroid outpost; that is, an outpost built onto an asteroid. It was far from an habitable planet and fully independent, making it well out of the way of civilization and away from prying eyes. It was also obviously old, making Naruto wonder just how long it had taken Project Hellkite to find it.

"You'll be entering loud and proud from directly above their hangar bay, eliminating their chances of escape," as the Director said so the layout zoomed in and highlighted the blueprints of the hangar bay, and proceeded to move through the outpost, "You're to kill everyone there, no exceptions. Find out what they've learned about us and then destroy all evidence they have against us. Any questions?"

"No ma'am!" came the chorus of Agents.

"Good. You are dismissed."

.-

Naruto followed his squad to the _Overlord_'s hangar bay, glaring at the ground through his helmet. That is, until Eta pushed his shoulder, nearly causing him to fall. Then his glare was on the slightly taller man. "What the hell was that for Eta?" Naruto shouted at the other Agent. He could tell that the other man was grinning, even behind his blue helmet.

"You really fucked up today didn't you, Sigma?" Naruto didn't like Eta's voice. It was too cocky. "How are you ever going to redeem yourself to the Director?"

"Was it you that fucked with my alarm?" Naruto clenched his fists at his side, trying to control himself.

"Now now, Sigma, let's not throw accusations around, especially when you don't have any proof," Sigma could hear the laughter and mockery in Eta's voice as he walked away, "Besides, what's one little mistake in the grand scheme of things?"

That infuriated Naruto more than anything else. Mistakes were never forgiven in Project Hellkite, and they were most certainly not forgotten. Indeed, only those who were perfect ever stayed in the Project for long, and there was only one way out of it. So every mistake made was a mark against your life and too many killed you. Of course, this was all rumor. All Naruto knew was that those who had been kicked from the Project had never responded to his messages.

Project Hellkite was more of an organization than a project with the sole intention of training soldiers into living weapons to use against the Insurgency. According to all records, the Project didn't exist and had not made it past the hypothetical stage of planning. This was entirely by the Director's design. The Director employed cutting-edge and prototype technology to aid her Agents in combat, making the already effective soldiers all the more deadly. Each Agent was equipped with Mk III Promethean armor, the latest combat armor system capable of extravehicular activity and packed with enough apps to make a mobile phone say "Damn". This made it extremely expensive, of course, and probably made quite a few accountants befuddled at where the huge whole in the budget came from.

Of course, Naruto, known only as Sigma to his peers and superiors, didn't worry about things like that. He worried only about staying in the Director's good graces and above the 24th spot on the leaderboard. 24 often didn't last long in the Project.

-.-. ... .. .-.. -..

Naruto checked his assault rifle as his dropship neared the Insurgent outpost, glancing nervously at his squadmembers. Eta was sitting calmly across from him, apparently asleep, but Naruto knew better. Omicron was piloting the dropship with skill that only came with much practice while Kappa loaded her shotgun. Her red helmet was off and on the floor of the dropship, revealing impossible, pink hair and a pretty face. It was incredible how innocent she could look right before a fight; it still surprised Naruto that she could decapitate a man without so much as flinching.

"Alright, we're approaching the outpost, get ready to go!" Omicron shouted from up front while stabbing a few buttons on the dropship's console before running into the cargo bay with the rest of his squad. Naruto lifted up the bar from his lap and stepped next to his teammates as the dropship's cargo door opened up, sending all the air into outer space and taking Naruto's breath with it. No matter how many times he entered the void of space it's emptiness still managed to amaze him. Then the transparent blue of an air shield appeared in front of the squad and they sprinted out of the dropship.

Sigma freefell towards the asteroid, the outpost's artificial gravity pulling him down. And then it was suddenly gone and only his momentum kept him going down. He could hear Omicron, usually stoic and calm, hooting into his microphone like a schoolboy, "It worked! Hell yeah!"

As Sigma landed on the ground he turned to find the air shield that had protected the outpost's inhabitants gone, sending the Insurgents in the hangar bay platform into the cold embrace of deep space. This was by design, of course. Omicron had set the dropship on a crash course with the outpost's power generator effectively stopping the Insurgents from reaching their one escape route. "Nicely done, Omicron," Sigma complimented as they sprinted past the dying bodies of Insurgents, ignoring them like one does trash on the sidewalk.

"Of course it was, I did it!" Omicron laughed as he pushed off of a dead Insurgent, sending him flying towards the doorway leading to the rest of the outpost and sending the Insurgent out of sight.

"Alright guys, cut the chatter," Kappa ordered as she caught up to Omicron, her magnetic boots keeping her connected to the metal floor of the platform, "Omi, get this door open yesterday."

"Already on it, boss. And done."

"Alright, open in 3, 2, 1, mark!" As Omicron opened the door Sigma ducked in time to avoid getting hit in the head by an Insurgent flying out into the void.

"Idiots," Eta muttered aloud, "Don't they know they're already dead?"

"Yeah, and all it cost us was one very expensive stealth dropship," Sigma chuckled as Omicron made excuses.

"I said to cut the chatter!" Kappa shouted, gaining the attention and immediate obedience of the other three Agents. "Now then, let's move. Omicron, leave the door open behind us."

They ran through the outpost, opening all doors they came across, sending all those unfortunate enough to be on the other side to a cold and airless death. Five minutes later they were on their way back, congratulating themselves on a rather boring mission well done. Omicron had honestly done most of the work, and most of that had been deleting Project Hellkite from the Insurgency's records. Truth be told, Sigma was a little disappointed; he had expected at least a little resistance. This was almost too easy.

A moment after he thought that an armored figure dropped from a vent above and landed in front of Eta, who was in front of Sigma. Not even a second later he heard the roar of a shotgun and felt Eta fly back into him. Reacting more than thinking, Sigma shoved Eta's corpse off of him and scrambled to his feet as another shot fired and pulled his assault rifle up in time to see the armored figure point a detonator at him. The sight of the detonator caused Sigma to hesitate in fear allowing the Insurgent to press the big red button on the top. Suddenly Sigma was forced to the ground by a rib crushing weight at the same time as a large explosion went off. He could hear Kappa panting through his mic and knew she too had been caught in the explosion.

"Sigma?" a feminine voice asked, "Is that you?"

Sigma looked up at the armored figure who staring at him. To say he was shocked was an understatement. The figure was wearing Hellkite Promethean armor, which was reserved for the top five Hellkite Agents. And this figure, a woman to be precise, was none other than Epsilon, number three on the leaderboards.

"Epsilon, why?" he choked out, straining to look at her.

"Because the Project is wrong," Epsilon sighed, squating down in front of Sigma. Her shotgun was still in hand and pointed at him. "The Insurgents aren't evil or terrorists. They're just trying to protect their homes and families. They just want independence."

"What the hell, Epsilon?" Sigma shouted, or tried to. The weight of rubble on his body was making it difficult to breath, let alone talk. "Are you fucking serious? I can't believe you of all people would betray the Director. You know we're going to kill you for this!"

"Does that mean that you aren't going to consider joining me?" Sigma was surprised to hear a tinge of sadness in her voice.

"Fuck off."

"Oh well, Sig. I didn't want it to come to this, but you leave me no choice." Epsilon stood abruptly and plucked a grenade from her belt. She activated it and rolled it right in front of Sigma before walking away without another word.

Naruto stared at the grenade inches from his face and was surprised by the lack of emotion he felt at the thought of his death. Shouldn't he be furious or scared or something? He decided not to worry about it in his last few moments. Instead he watched as the grenade's timer counted down impossibly slowly to zero. And then it exploded.

-.- - ..-

Epsilon waited until she was on the hangar platform to open her communications channel to the _Liberty_, and Insurgent frigate that was on route to the defeated outpost. "Captain, what's your ETA?"

"Sixty seconds, Ms. Hyuuga. Did the Agents give you much trouble?"

"None, thank you for asking. See you soon."

.- - ..- .-.. -..

**Hello, and welcome to my latest baby. I started this story over a year ago. I had the intro and one paragraph down, so I couldn't remember just what the hell it was about. This of course grabbed my interest and here's the result of three straight hours of writing. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did writing it and know that it will get better. First chapters are rarely ever the best part of a story, so I hope you'll stick with me. Please review!**

**Foxtrot Agent 21, signing out.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Hunter**

_Novermber 21, 2135_

_Undisclosed location, aboard the _Overlord

Naruto awoke to white and groaned. As he sat up and looked around his hospital room he felt the urge to groan a second time, but just barely managed to supress it. The Director stood at the edge of his bed, leering down at the hospitalized Agent.

"H-Hello Director," Naruto stammered, unconsciously noting the exits to the hospital room, "To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"

"You failed your mission, Agent Sigma."

"Yes ma'am."

"That is unacceptable."

"Yes ma'am."

"You will be leaving Project Hellkite as soon as the doctors clear you to leave, is that understood?"

"Wait, Director!" Naruto shouted, panic leaking into his voice. "Please give me another chance!"

"We don't allow second chances, Uzumaki," Naruto flinched at her use of his real name, "You know that."

"Please, Director, I'll do anything to stay in! The Project has given me everything; it'd kill me to lose it."

He stared at his sheets as he fought tears away from his eyes, furious with himself. He was twenty-six years old dammit! He suddenly became aware of the Director being uncomfortably close and felt the blood in his veins turn to ice as she whispered in his ear, "You have no idea."

He whipped his head up to stare slack-jawed as the Director walked slowly towards the door of the room. She stopped at the doorway, looking over her shoulder at the former Agent. "If you truly wish to remain an Agent, you will get out of that bed this instant and follow me to the briefing room. This is your only chance. Prove to me you'll truly do anything for Project Hellkite."

Before she had finished her last sentence Naruto had swung his legs off the bed and leapt up- and immediately fell to the ground as pain tore through his legs. He let out a cry as he hit the cold tile and fiery torment traveled to his brain. He looked down at his legs to find them in casts. "Dammit, Epsilon!" he muttered through gritted teeth and looked up to find the Director no longer in the doorway. "Fuck!"

He pulled himself on his arms to the hallway, trying his best to ignore the pain from his legs, and arrived just in time to see the Director disappear down a corridor. "No!" Naruto screamed as he franticly chased after the Director, pulling himself across the floor of the _Overlord_. Each pull hurt like hell, but he'd be damned if he let this opportunity slip past.

-.-

When Naruto arrived at the briefing room he was only half conscious, so he couldn't be sure if the Director's scowl meant that he'd failed her test or not. Hell, she might no even have been scowling at him; he was having problems seeing more than a foot in front of him.

"Well then, Sigma, that was nearly impressive," when the Director spoke his Agent name Naruto nearly passed out then and there, but the Director's sharp voice -and the fear of what would happen to him if he failed to obey her- kept him from doing so, "Stay awake Sigma, or else I'll change my mind. Now then, it's about time I give you your new mission."

Naruto didn't waste energy on a groan. "Mission?"

"Indeed. As you well know, we weren't able to recover much information from the outpost because they had almost finished wiping the system clean. But we were able to find the name of a known Insurgent planet: Unity. It's well out of the way of the war, making it of little importance- until now. Your mission is to find out what the Insurgents are doing at Unity, and retrieve all data possible. Understood?"

Naruto only barely found the strength to nod.

"Good. You leave in three days. I'll see to it that the medics speed up your recovery. You are to come back with the data, or die trying. There's no middle ground here, Agent Sigma. Dismissed." At the sound of the last word Naruto left the world of the conscious.

-.-

_November 24, 2135_

_Above Insurgent Colony Planet Unity_

Naruto looked out of the cockpit of his dropship with dismay and a lot of incredulity. Floating above Unity was an Insurgent fleet that made Naruto cringe just to look at. It was visible from from over 400,000 miles away, a mass of gray like a second skin for the red planet. A fleet like this would be able to stand up even to Interstellar Space Fleet, Project Hellkite's superiors- technically.

Unity itself was a planet filled with iron, much like Mars from the Inner Planets within the ISF. Before the Insurgents had seized it unopposed, it had served as one of many colony planets whose sole purpose was to supply raw materials to the Inner Planets and their territories. Apparently, much like the Insurgents, the inhabitants had disagreed with such a small cog in the ISF engine and had readily been accepted into the Insurgency. Then the ISF had decided to make an example of the relatively defenseless supply colonies, Unity being one of them. It was rumored that the red of Unity's surface had gotten darker since that day.

Naruto shook his head of such thoughts and activated his communications channel. Ten seconds later the voice of the Director broke through the silence of the dropship. Naruto didn't realize how much he liked the silence until that moment. "Are you reporting to tell me that your mission is a success, Agent Sigma?"

"No ma'am, I-"

"Then finish it. Do not call me back until it is completed." Naruto could tell she was about to close the channel, so he did the one thing he'd never dreamed of doing: he raised his voice at the Director.

"Don't close the channel!" he shouted, and immediately regreted it, but he had to go on. There was silence on the other end, but the line was still open. "There's an Insurgent fleet over Unity. A big one."

"... How big?"

"Big enough to take on the ISF motherfleet."

"Interesting. How does that affect your orders?" Naruto nearly fell out of his chair at this, making the pain in his legs return. Sure, the doctors had hastened the mending process, but most of the pain was still there.

"B-But ma'am!" he stammered, hoping that the Director wasn't serious, "There's a gigantic fleet out there and I'm in a dropship!"

"And?" Of course she was. "Adaptability is an admirable trait, Sigma. I suggest you excercise it to your full ability for this mission." And then the Director was gone, leaving a very distraught Naruto alone with his thoughts once more.

"How the fuck am I supposed to do this?" he screamed at the fleet, glaring at the massive object floating between him and his objective. Doubtlessly one of those ships had to have information on just what the Insurgency was doing on the red planet, but by the time he figured out which one had the information he needed he'd likely be dead. And that was if the fleet didn't blast him to dust particles the moment they saw him. It was hopeless. He'd die if he attempted this mission, and he'd be dead if the Director found out that he'd failed to obtain the data.

"Only option is to hide," he muttered mournfully as he began pressing in the coordinates for an Insurgent world. Right as he finished typing in the coordinates, however, an Insurgent Frigate materialized out of nowhere only a few miles away from his ship. He decided then that maybe some cosmic power was looking out for him, in a way.

Grinning, he gunned it for the frigate, or, more specifically, the frigate's communications tower. As soon as the ship was locked on a crash course, Naruto ran to the back of the dropship, lowering the ramp and looking out into the void. As he jumped into the black it occured to him that maybe this wasn't his best idea ever. Then he was out of the safety of the dropship and watching as it exploded against the frigate's comm tower, an impressive display of fire and shrapnel that was quickly killed by the void of space.

While his ship was crashing into the frigate, Naruto himself was floating through space towards the frigate's hangar bay which was protected by an air shield. The air shield would keep in air and keep out objects of certain speeds and sizes.

Naruto, however, was too small and too slow for the airshield to care about keeping out. He drifted through the airshield and immediately felt the effects of the frigate's artificial gravity, falling ten feet to the floor. His heavy armor reduced some of the impact but it still shot liquid pain through his legs. The medics had done what they could, and he was able to walk without risk of injuring something, but it still hurt incredibly. He didn't let himself catch his breath before he ran for cover behind a stack of crates.

From behind the cover of crates he could see Insurgent grunts and pilots rushing around like chickens without heads about the hangar, unsure if they were to hop in their fighters and dropships. More were arriving every second but most of those were coming from the barracks, located at the tail end of the ship. Sigma grinned once more and set off at a dead sprint for the front of the ship where he knew the bridge was. He heard a few startled shouts of alarm but he ignored them as he made it through the single door leading to the front of the frigate.

Pulling his assault rifle off of his back he closed the door and shot the digital lock, all the while grinning. "That should hold them for a while." Sigma turned around and started at the sight of four armed Insurgents and the sight of one horribly familiar suit of armor.

"Hello Sigma," Epsilon said cheerfully, even as she pointed a shotgun at his face, "How nice to see you again, though I do wish it were on better circumstances."

-.-

Hinata Hyuuga, known as Epsilon to the group she had formerly worked for and recently betrayed, knew immediately who had crashed into the Insurgent frigate _Final Stand_. Well. She knew who had ordered it anyway. She definitely wasn't expecting it to be Sigma, whom she was almost certain had died on the Insurgent outpost. Sure, she had only thrown an electromagnetic pulse grenade, something that would shut down Sigma's armor and make it impossible for him to move while also cutting his life support. There was the chance he could have survived, but she knew even if that was the case that he'd be out of combat for weeks. Obviously she had underestimated the Director.

But perhaps the Director overestimated her Agents. There was no way #21, AKA Sigma, could take on the likes of her, #3 on the leaderboard. Obviously not, if she had him at shotgun point. he had only _just _made it past the hangar. And he had only just spotted them. "Hello Sigma," she said cheerfully, mocking him, "How nice to see you again, though I do wish it were on better circumstances."

"Epsilon, you traitorous _bitch_, " he growled at her, ignoring the grunts aiming their guns at him.

"Now now, Naruto, that's an awfully rude thing to say to another Agent." Sigma rocked back as though slapped at the mention of his real name.

To his credit, Sigma recovered quickly. "You're no longer an Agent, Epsilon."

"And neither are you if the Director is sending you on this suicide mission," Hinata could almost feel the rage eminating off of the armored man, and couldn't help but harden her voice in response. "Think about it, Sigma; she knows about the fleet and yet she's still sending you up against it with absolutely no hopes of success. Oh I'll admit, maybe you could've gotten whatever you needed by boarding this frigate, but I'm here to stop you. This is now pointless." Sigma didn't lower his weapon. "Come on Sigma, there's still time to join us. I don't want to have to kill you."

"Well then, Epsilon, you're in luck!" Hinata tensed at the sudden cockiness in his voice, "Hit it, Kurama." Then Sigma erupted into a field of red energy right as Hinata fired her shotgun at him.

-.-

**Apologies if this is shorter than the last one, but I was in a rush to get another one out. So, this is as realistic as sci-fi can get, so some of you may be wondering how Naruto can be talking to a demon fox. This will be explained in the next chapter. If you have any question, please review them. DO NOT PM ME about them. And even if you don't have any questions, your reviews are appreciated.**

**Foxtrot Agent 21, signing out.**


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